Fidel Castro has long been convinced of capitalism's doom, but he was gratified this week to receive fresh confirmation from the Guardian.

Cuba's former president seized on the paper's report of surging cocaine production as further proof of the "incurable crisis" afflicting western economies.

Karl Marx nailed the idea first, of course, but the Guardian's article on Monday was better late than never in exposing the fatal consequences of market-driven decadence.

"Last Monday, the 9th, like all the others, was a marvellous day in terms of the contradictions of developed capitalism in the midst of its incurable crisis," Castro wrote in the Communist party newspaper Granma.

The 82-year-old leader devoted more than a third of his article, his Reflections of Fidel column, to quoting the Guardian's investigation into the mayhem caused by the more than 750 tonnes of cocaine that flow annually from the Andes.

The ailing "maximum leader", always a voracious reader, has had press clippings delivered to his bed since falling ill in 2006. He read a translation of the Guardian story from the Spanish news agency Efe.

It cited policymakers and law enforcement officials who said relentless demand in western countries had derailed the 30-year-old drug war. Huge profits ensured that the supply, controlled by ruthless armed groups and cartels, always found a way through, leaving a trail of corpses and warped institutions.

Castro also cited a Reuters report that the financial crisis would hit growth and jobs in Latin America for the next four years. "The British news agency Reuters [is] in no way suspected of being anti-capitalist," he noted.